As the years rolled on, scarcely a month passed by, but what some incident occurred that told me we have admitted into common use the most dangerous drugs ever placed upon the pages of our text books. I have taken 2½ grain doses of acetphenetidin with salol at various times for colds and rheumatism, and thought for years that it did me no harm, but now I am reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the contrary. For after two or three days’ use, with a dosage of 2½ grains three or four times a day I find myself almost completely benumbed and heart action very weak. And as I recall it I have always had these symptoms, though less pronounced, and yet it has taken years, with all my knowledge of the drug, to tumble to its viciousness. A physician very near to me, commenced using the same drug in small doses and in a short time could take as high as one dram, but he has quit. Here are the two extremes in dosage.
Another physician gave a colored woman the well-known mixture of soda acetanilid and caffeine and in a short time she was consuming one ounce every two weeks. The physician and woman are both dead.
Still another M. D. who dispensed about 1000 3½ grain acetanilid tablets per month, died with a bad heart. I do not know how many of them he took himself, but I have always had my convictions, and I am reasonably certain that he died without blaming the acetanilid for his condition. Our sales for one year covering our retail trade and a wholesale account of about 100 physicians totals 100,000 tablets containing some one of the coal tar products. The patent headache and pain remedies, estimated in ten cent packages, total 4000 and the cold cures 700 boxes, while the bulk goods, covering acetanilid, acetphenetidin, hexamethylene, sulfonal, trional, veronal, reaches 15 pounds. The profit on these goods should run about $400, but the public is welcome to our part of it, if they will let coal tar alone, either voluntarily or by compulsion. Now then, with these figures before us, and with the facts plainly evident to druggist or physician who uses any powers of discernment, what chance have the common people against the wiles of the impertinent manufacturer who repeatedly advertises, “Perfectly Harmless.”